Have you ever found yourself working from textbooks whose information is out of date? Or perhaps you’ve come across a great current event in science that would integrate wonderfully into your curriculum if only you had time to get the resources together. As two science educators who sympathize fully with these experiences, we would like to share a resource that we developed in an effort to enhance intermediate and secondary science programs in a meaningful, engaging way for students. We call it Science Times.

Science Times is an online news source that provides students with the most up-to-date information about breaking, controversial stories related to science, technology and environmental topics. The use of these science news articles allows teachers to challenge students’ attitudes about science while also promoting scientific literacy. And through the use of controversial topics, students have the opportunity to examine, develop opinions, and discuss pressing and authentic issues of the day, while engaging critically with the culture of science.

Resources such as Science Times show students that science is constantly changing and of central importance to our society. Consequently, we as citizens must not sit idly by and accept the events as they happen without critically analyzing their impact and questioning the decisions surrounding them. It is the intent of Science Times, therefore, to help give students valuable insight into the potential social and ethical implications of the science taking place in the world around them.

Issues reported in Science Times are selected for their relevance, interest, and controversial nature. They also provide teachers with excellent opportunities to integrate science into other areas such as English/Language Arts or Social Studies. Teachers can download and print one-page, PDF articles, which are written at three different reading levels. We have provided suggestions about how the resource may be used in our online Teacher’s Guide, as well as providing Student Activities for each of the articles.

We are proud to be able to offer Science Times in both English and French at no expense to teachers in BC, thanks to the support we receive from National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Vancouver Foundation, and the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs (OFFA) at Simon Fraser University.